After School Snacks
This week’s peanut butter scare got me thinking about after-school snacks. And more.
Our mom didn’t work “outside the home” as they say–but I don’t remember any snacks awaiting us as we alighted from the school bus. I do, however, remember occasionally getting a couple of nickels to buy a coke and candy bar (those were the days!) after school. In the first grade, I got out of school at 2:30, but I had to wait in “bus room” until 4:00 when the school buses ran. The teachers rotated bus room duty a week at a time–I was terrified when it was Mrs. Ryan’s week–she flew into a rage one week and hit me when I got out the sewing cards to pass the time. I still don’t know why that was the wrong thing to do but I do remember the terror and not being able to explain to my great aunt who kept telling me how great a teacher she was. That was the 1950s and teachers were always right and nutrition didn’t preclude lots of sugary treats. It was one of those coke machines with the bottles lined up in a vertical row down one side of the machine and all you could see were the pop caps through the skinny glass door, and you pushed down a short, fat metal lever after you put your nickel in. It was a real luxury to get to stroll down the hall, past Mr. Wright, the Principal’s office, and all the other now-darkened 1st and 2nd grade rooms, to the snack machines standing just outside the cafeteria. Sometimes we bought peanuts and put them in our coke bottles–it wasn’t the food as much as it was another way to pass time until it was time to home.
The other thing I remembered was one of the times we got to go over to our great Aunt Eva’s after school. She was our Granddad Osborne’s sister and married to our Grandmother Osborne’s brother. Our dad worked for her husband Uncle George and we probably saw them more than we saw our Osborne grandparents because we often lived just across “the orchard,” (home of one pear tree and several failing elms and at least 2 of our tree houses) from them. We loved going to Aunt Eva and Uncle George’s–they had a television, a big yard, a piano and a pump organ, indulgent ways, two lily ponds in the yard–those terrified my mom but they fascinated me–see indulgent ways above :-)–Aunt Eva had a yard full of flowers and a huge vegetable garden. She was also likely to have guineas and bantam chickens (sometimes she kept the chicks in a box in the chair beside her in the house) and very, very fat pug dogs, which her grandchildren called “JinglePig” because they wore so many tags as they waddled through the house. She did oil painting and china painting and had a kiln in her house and had little tiny bottles of Dr. Pepper under her sink out on the back porch that we had to walk right by to enter her house. We looked at those particularly longingly each time we went in. She let us paint and fired our tiles for us. We still have them. There was a big bell out in the yard that her parents had used to call the family and workers to dinner–they didn’t care if we rang it at will when we came over. One of my mom’s favorite stories was one day when she’d relented and let me go over for a visit, she asked me if I’d told all the family secrets (which gives you a read on how she felt about us kids going over there). My answer was “What family secrets?”
But I remember one day getting to go to Aunt Eva’s after school and her fixing my brother and I a snack–leftover biscuits from breakfast, some sort of meat–probably a piece of steak, lettuce, tomato, and what I found the strangest of all, French salad dressing. I can’t really tell you why that is such a vivid memory for me. Aunt Eva and Uncle George had a table that folded down from the wall–it was put down, my brother and I were perched there at the table, and there was a little room off where that table was, and in that little room was the stove and fridge and a little counter space, and when she brought those little sandwiches out, I just remember being so amazed that someone would put French salad dressing on a sandwich. In retrospect, I’m not surprised. Aunt Eva didn’t follow rules recipes, of any sort. And I have to admit to being that way myself. I find myself reading through recipes–whether for making food or building something or crafting an item–but then I start thinking about ways to “make it my own.” My visiting brother was looking at my house shoes the other day–I’d cut the toes out of them. I told him I was channeling Aunt Eva–they were hot but I still needed to have them to wear for the sole support. So I’d modified them. I thought she would approve. And I’ve been known to put French dressing on a sandwich now and then as well. I think she was just ahead of the curve of putting Ranch dressing on everything.
Back to peanut butter. My brother was the master of peanut butter for after school snacks. He had it down. He’d get out the peanut butter, the jelly, sometimes honey or syrup instead, get out the bread, and always a saucer and a knife. Through lots of experience, he’d mastered the precise proportions. First he’d scoop out the peanut butter. Just the right amount amount, scraped off on the edge of the saucer and then moved to the middle of the saucer. Next came the jelly or the honey. It was ok to use the same knife in the jelly jar because he could scrape off all the peanut butter on the edge of the saucer–it was usually strawberry jelly–our dad didn’t like grape jelly, but we did, so sometimes it was grape. But it could also have been apple butter or some other kind of jelly. Or honey. Or maybe even pancake syrup. Like I said, he had it down–he liked “mixing it up.”
And then he really did start stirring up the peanut and the sweet additive of choice. When it reached just the right consistency, then he started spreading it on the bread. It was usually white bread, of course. Sometimes it was saltine crackers, but usually bread. He topped it off with another slice, and with a glass of milk, he was set. There was never any peanut butter left over–he always got just the right amount for one sandwich and that’s all he ever ate. And he cleaned up after himself. What a guy.
I don’t remember what I ate–I know it wasn’t peanut butter. I really didn’t like peanut butter. I had a roommate who ate peanut butter for breakfast which I thought was slightly gross–she probably thought the same thing about my eggs and toast. I’ve grown to like peanut butter very much. But I remember my brother eating it often–he loved it. The peanut butter in my cabinet had the magic 21111 number. I probably won’t get around to sending in the lid, but I’ve pulled the jar out and bought a new one.
Amazing what the talk of salmonella can bring back.
